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Donald Trump

AP/Evan Vucci

Analysis & Opinions - Institut Montaigne

The Fall of American Primacy? Interview with Stephen Walt

    Author:
  • Soli Özel
| June 12, 2019

To discuss the future of the world order, America's relations with Europe, the status of Russia, and a Realist's assessment of the China challenge, Soli Özel, Institut Montaigne's Visiting Fellow in international relations, met Professor Stephen Walt in March in his office at the Harvard Kennedy School. 

Damaged vehicles are seen on the debris of buildings after the airstrikes carried out by Russian and Syrian warplanes targeted Aleppo, Syria.

Getty Images/Anadolu Agency

Analysis & Opinions - Agence Global

Syria becomes even more complicated

| July 23, 2016

"The failed military coup in Turkey and the country’s many links with key regional actors in Syria, Russia, Iran, and NATO clarify how difficult it has become to achieve political solutions to individual conflicts, because local, national, regional, and global interests of any single party do not line up nicely in a coherent and clear balance sheet of desirables and undesirables..."

NATO ambassadors meet in Brussels to discuss the July terrorist attacks and security in Turkey.

Getty Images

Analysis & Opinions - Agence Global

Can NATO militaries generate Mideast stability?

| July 29, 2015

"The agreement between Turkey and the United States on a yet-to-be-defined plan to establish a 60-mile-long zone in northern Syria adjacent to the frontier with Turkey anticipates that their troops, artillery, drones and jet fighters, working with selected Syrian rebels on the ground inside Syria, will keep the area free of “Islamic State” (IS) control. This move is at once decisive and dangerous. It positions two of the world’s and the region’s leading military powers, and NATO members, within half a dozen major local fighting forces of very different ideologies, and hundreds of smaller units with equally kaleidoscopic goals, identities and allegiances."

People lay flowers at the grave of Boris Nemtsov after a burial ceremony at Troekurovskoye cemetery in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, March 3, 2015. One by one, thousands of mourners and dignitaries filed past the white-lined coffin of slain Kremlin critic Bori

AP

Analysis & Opinions - The Boston Globe

The problem with Putin

| March 3, 2015

In this Boston Globe op-ed, Professor Burns writes about the tragedy of Boris Nemtsov's murder in Red Square and the need for the West to continue to shine a bright spotlight on the lack of freedom in Russia. He argues that the European and U.S. response to Russia's actions in Ukraine has been insufficient. In particular, Germany, the strongest European state, appears incapable of combining diplomacy and tougher measures effectively in its dealings with Russia. Professor Burns writes that it is timer for President Obama to lead a stronger Western response to Putin through greater economic sanctions against Russia, much more substantial financial aid to the Ukrainian government, the transfer of defensive arms to Kiev and a new move to station a strong contingent of NATO ground and air forces permanently on the territory of NATO allies Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Those forces will help to make credible to Putin NATO's Article V commitment to the security of the Baltic States.

Lt. Gen. William C. Mayville Jr. speaks about the Syrian bombing campaign September 23, 2014

Getty Images

Analysis & Opinions - Agence Global

Three Questions to Ask Before Unleashing the Military

| October 11, 2014

"The American-led air attacks against ISIS in Iraq and Syria have triggered new debates in the United States about how the U.S. should respond to this and other challenges in faraway lands that may or may not directly threaten American interests. I have had enjoyable and substantive discussions with students and faculty at the University of Oklahoma this week, in which this question has come up repeatedly — and understandably so, given that most Americans had felt that their country was withdrawing from its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than re-engaging in new combat action."

Analysis & Opinions - Financial Times

Three critical tests for NATO leaders in Wales

| August 31, 2014

This week's NATO Summit meeting in Wales will be among the most consequential in the Alliance's 65-year history. President Obama and Europe's leaders will contend with three major challenges.

First, they should agree on stronger sanctions against Russia following the move of Russian troops across the border into Ukraine during the last week. They should also agree to provide military equipment to the embattled Ukrainian government so that it can defend its country. Second, the European allies should agree to help the U.S. contain ISIS in Iraq and Syria. And, third, NATO should reconsider its decision to remove all combat forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2016. That will give the Taliban an open road to destabilize the new Afghan government.

These crises pose major challenges to this generation of NATO leaders. NATO will need strong American leadership, in particular, if it is to succeed in maintaining its status as the world's most powerful and effective alliance.

President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel participate in a joint news conference in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 2, 2014. Obama and Merkel are putting on a display of trans-Atlantic unity against an assert

AP

Analysis & Opinions - The Boston Globe

Where’s the US on Ukraine?

| May 8, 2014

Nick Burns discusses why Putin's aggression in Ukraine matters to America's vital interests, and how the American and European response — weak, disjointed, and ineffective — has his colleagues around the world wondering, Where is American power and leadership when the world needs it most?.

Communist lawmakers scuffle with right-wing Svoboda (Freedom) Party lawmakers during a parliament session of Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, in Kiev, Ukraine Tuesday, April 8, 2014.

AP

Analysis & Opinions - The Boston Globe

Playing to Putin’s end game

| April 10, 2014

Recent ethnic Russian demonstrations in Eastern Ukraine and fistfights in the Ukrainian parliament are more dramatic displays in the ongoing saga of a country unraveling. Furthermore, Putin's words--Crimea ibeing his last territorial demand--and actions--moving thousands of troops to to the Ukrainian border--aren't matching up.

Professor Burns writes about the need for a strong reponse from the U.S. and Europe. He suggests two options: imposing tough economic sanctions and moving NATO forces to the Baltics and Poland. Our allies, as well as Putin, are looking to see if Washington will display confidence, toughness, and leadership in the most serious security crisis in Europe since the Cold War’s end.

Thousands of pro-Russian people watch a live broadcast of Russian President Vladimir Putin's speech on Crimea in Sevastopol, Crimea, Tuesday, March 18, 2014. Fiercely defending Russia's move to annex Crimea Putin said Russia had to respond to what he desc

AP

Analysis & Opinions - The Boston Globe

Three myths about Putin’s Russia

| March 26, 2014

Professor Burns writes that President Putin's "extraordinarily powerful, provocative, acerbic, and self-pitying" March 18 speech to the Duma reveals three myths about his rule and ambitions: 1) Russians as victims of history; 2) Misguided U.S. policies forced Putin to react; and 3) Putin’s on a roll, and we can’t stop him.

Porfessor Burns believes that, as in the Cold War, the United States should stick to its defense of freedom and wait out Putin. Further, NATO and the EU are stronger than the Russian dictator in right and might as well as spirit.

A protester holds an Ukrainian flag with anti-Putin message during a demonstration against the Russian occupation of Ukrainian Crimea in Brno, Czech Republic, on Saturday, March 8, 2014.

Igor Zehl (CTK via AP Images)

Analysis & Opinions - The Boston Globe

In Ukraine, the end of Act One

| March 13, 2014

Putin's invasion of Ukraine is nearing the end of Act One. Professor Nicholas Burns expands on key points and questions as the saga continues: 1) Putin's strategy is crystal clear; 2) Europe and America are divided; 3) Obama didn't cause the problem; Putin did; 4) Power rules: Putin took Crimea because he could; 5) NATO is back; 6) The battle for a “democratic peace” in Europe has resumed; and 7) Putin is threatening great power peace with his land grab in Europe.